Partners In Crime

Chapter 4

"𝙾𝙵𝚃𝙴𝙽 𝚃𝙸𝙼𝙴𝚂 𝙸 𝚆𝙾𝙽𝙳𝙴𝚁... 𝚆𝙷𝙰𝚃 𝙶𝙴𝙽𝚁𝙴 𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝚆𝙾𝚄𝙻𝙳 𝙱𝙴𝙻𝙾𝙽𝙶 𝙸𝙽, 𝙸𝙵 𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝚆𝙴𝚁𝙴 𝙸𝙽 𝙾𝙽𝙴 𝙾𝙵 𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚂𝙴 𝙽𝙾𝚅𝙴𝙻𝚂."

I withdrew my eyes from a book my hands had gripped for hours, raising them to meet Claire's statue standing before me. Her figure blocked the early sunlight peeking through the window.

"No wonder the sun had suddenly settled down." Closing the book, I smiled at the rare sight. Years had passed since either one of my sisters stepped foot inside the private library of the estate, segmenting the rooms of the mansion and assigning them to each sister until there nearly were labels of ownership by the side of every door.

Claire chuckled in response, stepping to the side, "I fancy what you've done with the library." She crossed her arms, analyzing the increased number of books the room carried. Other than such, I preferred the library to stay much like how my father maintained it all those years before having me.

The room fell into an uncomfortable silence when the two of us lacked any discussion points to share. I wanted to ask the reason why, after so many years of what seemed like avoidance of the room, she chose to visit the place; however, as the first heir of the L/N family — by logistics, our household belonged to her, along with the free mobility throughout the estate.

Observing Claire's body move gracefully along the walls of the room, her hand caressing the bookshelves and picking up collected dust I hadn't the time to sweep, I chose to break the quiet, "Word on the street goes that you have picked up new business partners."

"Yes. That is why I am here." Out of nowhere, her tone lowered with the response taking longer than normal to articulate as her eyes fixated on a particular shelf causing her body to rapidly snap into a statue-like trance. Acknowledging her odd reaction, I placed the literature I had been reading on the coffee table and silently positioned myself at her side. I glanced at her unbreakable gaze and then at the shelf, attempting to pinpoint the object of her sudden hyperfixation. The side of the library her focus had been directed at, was the side I hardly paid any mind to, for it was the only part of the library that had only a handful of books among approximately hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of files, folders, and sheets of paper scattered throughout the shelves. And though it appeared rather cluttered and disorderly at first glance, Rosie had told me a while back that my father made it that way, and behind all of that chaos, his unique way of organizing was hidden.

The recollection of that memory motivated my eyes to scan through the items resting on those shelves, curiously aiming to find what was so interesting about it before a light brown hardcover of an untitled book, one of very few in that space, caught my attention. It did not take long for me to determine that I had found what I was looking for after I walked closer to the novel and picked it up, staring at Claire while doing so and noticing her body melt the frozen state away. Visibly, she came back to presence as her pupils dilated and met my own.

"There is no author," I withdrew my attention from her, rotating the book in my hands, "what is it about?"I asked, assuming that she knew the answer based on the situation, after failing to find any hints on my own.

Claire stood silently for a few seconds before looking back at me, "Why don't you open it and see?"

My eyebrows moved closer to one another, confused as to why she couldn't simply tell me, but I found no harm in doing as she said. The bizarreness of the book had not been limited to the absence of an author on the front cover, but the strange symbols written on every page instead of words too. It was no foreign language I could recognize and appeared to resemble the scribbles of a lethargic individual, drawing cubes, dots, and triangles to pass the time. I looked up at Claire who stood there, smiling, before dropping my eyes back onto the drawings. 

"Aren't they beautiful?" She asked, taking hold of the journal, more so than a book. 

I blinked a couple of times, feeling slightly disoriented after being caught off guard by the unexplainable, "They're certainly very... geometric."

She chuckled as her fingers overlined the shapes, her lips forming into a scarce smile once she closed her eyes... and then she closed the book. "Hold onto this, perhaps it would unveil quite useful in the short future." 

I accepted the object being handed to me, sensing a clump of words being stuck to the back of my throat, begging to escape. However, I let them dissolve, reflecting on the fact that if Claire wanted me to know, she would have easily explained. Instead, her desire for me to solve the mystery behind the cryptics was all too clear. 

"Tonight, I am hosting a dinner for my new business partners, so expect company and please dress accordingly." She made a few swiping motions with her hands against her dress, pulling onto the fabric to fix up her attire, before leaving the room along with me in it.